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Conversations with Roger Scruton Hardcover – July 26, 2016

by Mark Dooley (Author), Roger Scruton (Author)

58 ratings

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Roger Scruton is arguably the greatest living English philosopher. A prolific author of fifty books, composer of two operas, controversial columnist and academic dissident, he has stood at the heart of the intellectual life of Britain (and to some extent in the USA) for more than forty years.

Mark Dooley is Scruton's intellectual biographer. In these conversations Dooley coaxes Scruton to speak candidly about those whom he has loved and loathed, about his early philosophical influences and about those who have shaped him personally and intellectually. Going deeper than any previous autobiographical statements by Scruton, this book reveals what motivated the philosopher to embrace Kant and Wagner, how he came to know and admire thinkers like Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe and Mary Midgely, and what he said to the underground seminars in Communist Czechoslovakia and the precise circumstances surrounding his arrest and expulsion from that country.

It examines what Scruton really thinks of his intellectual and political adversaries and why he believes their message remains a recipe for social collapse. He provides answers as to why he left Birkbeck University College and why he eventually abandoned academia altogether. It also includes insights into daily life on Scruton's farm, his writing routines and his astonishing capacity to produce so prodigiously. Conversations with Roger Scruton asks questions which Roger Scruton has never answered before.

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About the Author

Mark Dooley is an Irish philosopher, author and journalist who has taught at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and at University College Dublin where he was John Henry Newman Scholar in Theology. He has been a columnist for both the Sunday Independent and the Irish Daily Mail, and is currently a Contributing Editor to The European Conservative magazine. His many books include The Roger Scruton Reader, Why Be a Catholic?, Moral Matters: A Philosophy of Homecoming, and Conversations with Roger Scruton, all published by Bloomsbury. In 2022, he edited and published Against the Tide: The Best of Roger Scruton's Columns, Commentaries and Criticism. He is Sir Roger Scruton's literary executor.

Sir Roger Scruton is widely seen as one of the greatest conservative thinkers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and a polymath who wrote a wide array of fiction, non-fiction and reviews. He was the author of over fifty books.

A graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge, Scruton was Professor of Aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London; University Professor at Boston University, and a visiting professor at Oxford University. He was one of the founders of the Salisbury Review, contributed regularly to The Spectator, The Times and the Daily Telegraph and was for many years wine critic for the New Statesman. Sir Roger Scruton died in January 2020.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Continuum
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 26, 2016
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 147291709X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1472917096
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 0.96 x 9.58 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #342,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #186 in Philosopher Biographies
- #229 in Individual Philosophers (Books)
- #255 in Social Philosophy
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Customers find the book engaging, with one mentioning how the author asks intelligent questions. They appreciate its readability, with one customer noting it's a must-read for Scruton fans. Customers like the author, with one describing them as a seductive writer.

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5 customers mention "Mind-reading"4 positive1 negative

Customers appreciate the book's ability to ask intelligent questions and engage sympathetically with Scruton, with one customer noting how it enriches and enlivens readers.

"...by a sensitive interviewer with Roger Scruton, a complex and interesting mind...." Read more

"A rich and lively mind that enriches and enlivens us all." Read more

"...Over an intense few days, Dooley engages sympathetically with Scruton and possesses both the knowledge and the language to pose difficult questions..." Read more

"Embittered philosophy from the discontented seeking certainty and validation while fruitlessly pursuing "the sacred"and the why of creation." Read more

5 customers mention "Readability"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book readable, with one mentioning it's a must-read for Scruton fans.

"...A very worthwhile read." Read more

"Great book and author! Very good service!" Read more

"...The book is a pleasant read of some 200 pp. There are no illustrations, but pictures of RS’s farm and family are available on the internet...." Read more

"A must for Scruton fans. Fills in a lot of biography that isn't in Gentle Regrets." Read more

4 customers mention "Author"3 positive1 negative

Customers appreciate the author of the book, with one noting that he has many interesting things to say, while another describes him as a seductive writer.

"Great book and author! Very good service!" Read more

"Roger Scruton is a highly accomplished and seductive writer...." Read more

"...It is not written as a formal interview, but rather as a continuous narrative, with Dooley initiating subjects for discussion and Scruton then..." Read more

"...little from the rigor but nevertheless find that the author has many interesting things to say as always...." Read more

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Richard B. Schwartz
Wiltshire Table Talk With An Important Thinker and Public Intellectual
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2016
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Mark Dooley is an Irish teacher and journalist who has previously written on the work of Roger Scruton. This book is the result of a three-day conversation with Scruton at his farm in Wiltshire. It is not written as a formal interview, but rather as a continuous narrative, with Dooley initiating subjects for discussion and Scruton then responding. The text is filled with extended quotes from Scruton’s works that reinforce the narrative. Given the fact that Scruton’s works are very, very far-ranging (he has written on art, architecture, intellectual history, Kant, Spinoza, sex, politics, music, etc. and has composed operas, written novels, taught, created consultancies and worked in think tanks), so is the discussion. Dooley asks intelligent questions, demonstrates a professional familiarity with many of the subjects at issue and is not afraid to get personal. The conversations are in approximate biographical order, so that the book constitutes a mini-biography as well as a latter day example of tischreden or table talk. The talk is more ‘extended’ than epigrammatic and the result is less marmoreal than one sees with Eckerman or Boswell, though it is unfair to compare anyone’s talk—even one as formidable as Scruton—with titans like Goethe and Johnson.

There are some interesting anecdotes and some new facts (that, e.g., RS wrote his introduction to Kant in four days). The book is a pleasant read of some 200 pp. There are no illustrations, but pictures of RS’s farm and family are available on the internet. Readers of Scruton will welcome this set of insights into his life and mind; those coming to him for the first time might even want to begin here, since Scruton talks candidly about his own books—those with which he is most pleased, those that may be a little longer than necessary, and so on. Since Scruton has written at length about the England that is quickly fading from view it is interesting to see him in his native habitat, working as an actual farmer and serving as the organist at his local church. Since he has spent a good bit of time in the United States it is very interesting to hear him discuss such topics as the American political ethos and system of education, from home-schooling to the current state of our universities.

Highly recommended for Scruton readers.

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RONALD MACKAY
Mark Dooley gives us a deeper insight into Roger Scruton
Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2018
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Roger Scruton is a highly accomplished and seductive writer. When I read his philosophical arguments on the conservation of all the things we love and count as important in our lives (the sacred, beauty in architecture and landscape, the sense of personal responsibility, love of home, family and country) I am swept along and persuaded almost 100%. To begin to explore the tiny grains of doubt within some of his arguments and his assertions, I have neither the skill nor the language. Hence, I tend to be left with a feeling of intellectual inadequacy.
Not so with ‘Conversations with Roger Scruton’. Mark Dooley is 20 years Scruton’s junior but his peer intellectually and educationally. Both are refined men of letters. Over an intense few days, Dooley engages sympathetically with Scruton and possesses both the knowledge and the language to pose difficult questions – questions that I feel I myself should have liked to have posed had I the capability.
Dooley and Scruton’s willingness to engage as peers in this open manner brings a deeper human dimension to Roger Scruton who is rightly identified as the first author. The conversations show him to be a more rounded human being than his brilliant writing alone is capable of.
These fourteen or so conversations represent Scruton’s expansion upon his personal life, his writing and his beliefs and effectively take the reader between the lines of most of his better-known books that deal with schools of philosophy; currents of the political left and right; Central and Eastern Europe in the ’70s and the ’80s ( matter of particular interest to me having worked there extensively in the late ’60s and early ’70s); aesthetics; patriotism; sexual relations; environmental conservation; playing and listening to music; religion; university teaching; and the pleasures of wine.
Dooley asks all the right questions and insists on being answered fully. Without Dooley, many of the ideas Scruton expands upon in this book would be unavailable to us.

‘Conversations with Roger Scruton’ is a credit to both Dooley and Scruton. It is a book of huge benefit to those (like me) who warm to and would better understand Scruton but find, in his solo writings, arguments that are too succinct to be grasped with comfort.

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Integrity Reviews
Fascinating
Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2017
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Wide-ranging interviews by a sensitive interviewer with Roger Scruton, a complex and interesting mind. Among much else, Scruton reveals his persecution in British academia because he dared to be a political conservative, and in his words "to want to keep what you know and love". A very worthwhile read.

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3 people found this helpful

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Miguel Gonçalves
Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2017
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Great book and author! Very good service!

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Murray Domney
Good read
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2017
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
A rich and lively mind that enriches and enlivens us all.

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Sam
Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2016
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
A must for Scruton fans. Fills in a lot of biography that isn't in Gentle Regrets.

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atawallpa
Highly recommended for those who follow this philosopher's work
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2017
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Scruton's work is always interesting and ever difficult. Here you get to relax a little from the rigor but nevertheless find that the author has many interesting things to say as always. Highly recommended for those who follow this philosopher's work.

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Books n' music fan
Essential reading for Scruton fans
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2017
Format: Hardcover
This is an ideal addition to the libraries of the many collectors of Roger Scruton's widely-read books. I always find it very insightful to know more about authors themselves if the subject they are covering is something as important as philosophy. I have seen him speak in public and found this book to be very revealing of this great man.

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D. M. Ohara
A heart-warming book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 16, 2023
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I have just finished this volume of Conversations which took place at Roger Scruton's farm in Wiltshire over three days including Palm Sunday in 2015, when Roger was, as usual, at the Organ of his Parish Church. The book, written by his interlocutor, Mark Dooley, includes excerpts from Roger's writings and verbatim quotes from their conversations, as well as reflections and comments by the author.

Roger here emerges as a polymath, equally well informed and erudite on a number of matters, such as art, music, literature, philosophy, aesthetics, history, politics, law, religion. education, architecture, and country life. He recognises, exemplifies and expounds on the nature of conservatism (small c), and how it undergirds and supports all his other interests. His death in January 2020, a few years after this volume was published, has left a void in our intellectual life, as there is no-one left who thought so deeply and wrote so clearly about such a wide range of issues.

Although he has no successor, perhaps Douglas Murray, his friend and supporter, is best equipped to carry the Scrutonian flame, at least in these islands, where he was for so long sneered at or ignored by the leftist bien pensant. He has many more supporters in Eastern Europe, where he worked long and hard to support those who opposed the communist regimes that have now crumbled, and was recognised as such by Czech President Vaclav Havel. He also has a following in the USA and in parts of South America.

For too long, he was a prophet without honour in his own country: that tide now seems to be turning, though it remains a Herculean task to keep the flame alive. A recent series of lectures in his honour at the Sheldonian in Oxford have reawakened interest in his life and thought. They are all available online and add further light on this decent man and visionary thinker.

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Mastercard
Un libro esencial para conocer a fondo a Roger Scruton y la riqueza intelectual de su mundo
Reviewed in Spain on August 27, 2019
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Me ha interesado en gran manera este libro-entrevista de Roger Scruton. He leído hace poco varios libros suyos que me han resultado del mayor interès, filosòfico, ético y estético, político en último término. Admiro su valentía intelectual para enfrentarse a un mundo dominado por un pensamiento opuesto al suyo, hoy en día dominante en Occidente. Y lo hace con argumentos sòlidos y convincentes. Es un personaje clave para entender el mundo britànico conservador tanto en su dimensión política como estética. Y siempre remando contra la corriente dominante. Un libro ideal para descubrir un personaje singular y su pensamiento.

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Aequo animo
Another few hours of undiluted pleasure.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 21, 2022
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
One day more people will know just how good a writer and how profound a thinker Roger Scruton was. If you are not of a philosophical bent there is plenty to get your teeth into. If you are, you are in for a rare treat. Either way you will marvel at his English.

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Vladimir S.
Intellectual CV
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 8, 2020
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
A life story of the intellectual development of an outstanding contemporary thinker

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Sarah Athena
British luminary
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 28, 2016
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Brilliant and inspirational, I always want to spend more time with Mr. Scruton's works.

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Conversations with Roger Scruton Hardcover – July 26, 2016

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5.0 out of 5 stars A heart-warming book

5.0 out of 5 stars Un libro esencial para conocer a fondo a Roger Scruton y la riqueza intelectual de su mundo

5.0 out of 5 stars Another few hours of undiluted pleasure.

5.0 out of 5 stars Intellectual CV

5.0 out of 5 stars British luminary

A heart-warming book

Un libro esencial para conocer a fondo a Roger Scruton y la riqueza intelectual de su mundo

Another few hours of undiluted pleasure.

Intellectual CV

British luminary